'You Talk' was originally a copy of a certain Velvet Underground song.

When you see a photograph of a football crowd at a Saturday afternoon game in August 1963, you've got 40,000 men in trilbies. That's paradise, man.

For a little while, maybe I did fall for my own mythology.

He kind of makes me ill, David Cameron. I liked the old-fashioned Tory - like Winston Churchill, who had style. But Cameron's like a new breed - computer-generated. I hate it.

To get better, you have to get worse.

I'm blindingly optimistic. Ravingly optimistic.

In my own sweet way, I'm quite a superficial person.

I love life. I squeeze everything I can out of the day.

I'm not saying that maybe there isn't a kid out there whose behavior hasn't been influenced by me in some way. I'm sure there is. But I can only speak for myself, and if you'd asked if my behavior had ever been affected by people I'd admired from afar, like musicians or footballers, that'd be a yes, totally. Right down to their hand gestures.

I could be anywhere. I just need my space to work.

I think I'm really quite horrible to myself in many ways.

Me and my dad, we're both quite nostalgic people.

I love Paris.

I was always very softly spoken and kinda looked after myself.

I just wanted to get on telly. I wasn't a massive Oasis fan, but I had to be in order to get on the telly.

Each man kills the things he loves. I recognise that in myself - in relationships, even with guitars - beautiful things that I've had and wilfully destroyed.

Spitalfields - I often find myself milling around there. I always go down Spitalfields whenever I can.

Music and fashion and art - they were the things we were willing to die for. 'Is my hair all right? Have you heard this tune?' They're the things that saved us. They're the things that are saving kids on Nuneaton council estates. There's no other way out.

It's never going to be hipster because you've got that smell that the sea gives out twice a day. That's why Margate will never be gentrified. However, there is art-led regeneration.

Inverted snobbery is just as dangerous as snobbery itself, you know - that pride in having nothing.

It was always my ambition to be on the cover of a free gay magazine.

The only way I see myself in a serious relationship is if I am toning it down a bit.

I have a distinct memory of friends I had at school whose parents were, for want of a better word, bohemian. That was the kind of England that I thought I should have belonged to.

My family used to say, point-blank, 'We'd support you if we thought you could sing, or we thought you could write songs, but you can't.'

So many actors say, 'Oh, I can't bear to see myself on screen,' but it's not true. Everyone loves to see themselves from a good angle.

Money wasn't important to me. Once I discovered music, I was quite happy to live as a bum. As long as I had my music and my band, I was happy.

I'm always looking over my shoulder.

I have too many debts with the wrong people.

I'm always nervous before playing a gig, to tell you the truth. It's what nearly did me in when I was with the Libertines. I just couldn't handle it.

When you're young and idealistic, you don't care: you'll play to no one, in your bedroom - like kids with football - you'll play anywhere; you just love the music. And then, bang - soon as you're in the industry, you think that's the dream. But that's when the dream starts to end.

I knew I had I a better album than 'Up the Bracket' in me, and I wanted to record it. But I was told we've got to keep touring, keep promoting. That was the first time I realised we were on a conveyor belt.

Anyone can feel amazing if you're with someone you love.

I can't see why people call me a bad influence. I meet a lot of kids who are into music. I spend as much time as I can with them. I listen to their demos, and I'm encouraging.

No, I never surround myself with people I hate.

In a way, I'm always working with Mick Jones. I feel like he's watching over me all the time. We talk about everything: history quite a lot. Balloons and wars and old football players. The Clash.

I used to write songs to get love, but now that I have it, I don't feel the need to anymore.

I wish I had better contact with my family.

Maybe I'm actually an optimist.

The only thing that makes sense to me that I've learnt over the years is knocking tunes together.

I've lived in Liverpool, London, Belfast, Germany, Coventry, Dorset, and Cyprus.

That was my fantasy, actually - to become a billionaire, buy the 'Sun' and the 'Mirror,' and close them down.

I like touring. It's like a school trip.

I'd never say I wouldn't fight a war. In different ages, I would have done. I'd have fought the Vikings.

At school, I was always the new boy, so I always went in for the school play. It was a way of breaking the ice and making friends with pupils and teachers for however long I had before moving on.

I've always enjoyed acting, and there's more than a degree of it involved in singing live on stage.

I've turned my back on fancy parties and red carpets. I'm a writer, and if I did that, I'd never get anything done.